Dec 1, 2019 | Anxiety, Control, Holidays, Perfectionism
When I read this headline on the front page of the Press Democrat this morning, I assumed that it was a mental health crisis line to deal with the increased depression and anxiety that many of us experience around the holidays. I was mistaken. Or was I?
In fact, the hotline in the article was dedicated to holiday anxiety and depression—in nervous cooks! One newlywed phoned in from a closet, “paralyzed by fear” because she did not want her mother in law to know she did not know how to cook a turkey.
The reason we get more anxious, stressed and worried around the holidays is we have been hijacked by our limbic system, which slams us with fight-or-flight neurochemicals whenever the possibility of being judged or criticized arises. It’s the monkey mind’s call to action: Woo-woo-woo! No mistakes! So we try to cook the perfect meal, create a sparkling clean house, get all our gift shopping done, then finally we can relax and enjoy the holidays. Nothing could be farther from the truth. What this does is feed the monkey, guaranteeing that next year will be as stressful as this one.
But you can break free. It’s not too late! Here’s what to do at the first sign of holiday trouble.
Jennifer’s Holiday Hot Tips
1. Identify the values you most want to cultivate this holiday season. Circle the ones that are important to you.
FUN CONNECTION SPIRITUALITY LOVE COMPASSION
2. Redirect yourself to a more expansive mindset, one that supports your true values. Circle the statements that you would like to believe more.
If things do not go exactly as planned, I can practice flexibility.
My self-worth is not tied to a perfect outcome.
Allowing for mistakes makes me human and vulnerable, which fosters true connection with others.
It is more important to live this holiday season fully in the present moment, than to succeed at making things “just right”.
3. When you feel yourself getting stressed and anxious, stop and take ten deep breaths.
4. Now think about something that you can take off your holiday plate right now!
Examples: Limit gift buying time; get a prepared meal or take out; delegate holiday tasks and let others do things differently than you would; don’t clean the whole house.
The Turkey Trouble Hotline in the newspaper article provides nonjudgmental, solution-focused therapy for cooks in trouble. My Holiday Hot Tips does the same for the rest of us. This holiday season, give yourself the gift of self-compassion and do less, not more. This is how we cultivate those values that are most important to us, not just during the holidays, but any time of the year.
Oct 31, 2019 | Anxiety, Control, Uncertainty
Uncertainty is inevitable in life. My personal practice, and the one I teach my clients and that I write about in my books, is that the more we can accept uncertainty, the more calm, grounded, and resilient we are. But I could accept uncertainty a little better if things weren’t so up in the air just now!
As wildfires rage in California, many of us have lost power and were evacuated from our homes. What should we pack? How long will we be gone? Where will we go? How long will the power be out? How strong will the winds get and what direction will they blow? Will my house burn down? For some of us this question was, will our house burn down again? So much is at stake, and so much is unknown. How do we cope with uncertainty and the anxiety it causes?
The anxiety we felt when the fire and evacuations began is the sympathetic— flight-fight —branch of our nervous system. It helped me focus when I was evacuating with my dog and my aged mother, packing underwear, warm clothes, medications, flashlights, batteries, water— things that would help us to survive. Thank you monkey mind!
Once we were safely situated, we want our nervous system to switch over to the parasympathetic nervous system, the one that allows us to the rest, relax and digest. Animals are great at this. If a deer sees you, its body tenses, ready to run. But once it recognizes you are not a threat and you walk on by, they go back to grazing moments later as if nothing happened. We humans are not so good at this. Once the imminent threat passes, we start to fret about money lost from the power outage, what to do with rotting food, and when will this happen again? We do, however, have the same ability as the grazing deer, we just need to help activate the parasympathetic nervous system.
We are all familiar with the healthy food pyramid that best supports our physical health. I’ve constructed a mental health pyramid that you may find especially useful in times of heightened uncertainty.
Bottom level 1:
Sleep, and if you are having trouble sleeping, rest. Contact with supportive friends/relatives; relaxation activities like meditation, guided visualizations, being in nature; exercise, which can be just 5 minutes of a brisk walk, gentle stretching, coming home to the body.
Level 2:
Keep to some kind of schedule if possible, getting up and going to bed around the same time. Think about things that you do daily, and see which ones you can still do even when life is topsy-turvy. Try to do at least two pleasant activities each day. This could be reading a book, playing with your pet, or listening to music if you have access to it.
Level 3:
Smile at others. Smiling actually releases endorphins (feel good chemicals we naturally produce) in both the giver and the receiver. Say out loud or write down three things you are grateful for. Be forgiving and gentle with yourself and others.
Level 4:
Checking newsfeeds and social media. We need to know what is happening in the world and with our friends and relatives, but if you are checking your cell phone every few minutes and are not in imminent threat, try to decrease it to once or twice an hour.
Level 5:
Complaining or asking why is this happening. It is natural to want to vent, but too much of it will make us feel worse.
Level 6:
Comfort food; alcohol or other synthetic relaxants;
Whether we are recovering from the threat of regional emergency like a wildfire, or from an illness, a job loss, or other personal stressor, we are always wise to remember what behaviors encourage the rest and digest branch of our nervous system. These self-care behaviors are the foundation for a healthy state of mind and body. They are how we feed ourselves, not the monkey!
Jul 1, 2019 | Control, Social Anxiety
A few weeks ago, I competed in a Toastmaster regional speech competition; nine representatives from Toastmasters clubs all over Northern California delivering 5-7 minute original speeches in front of an audience of 300 people. What made it even more formidable was that I was competing against an opponent that speaks much louder and faster than any of the other speakers, an opponent who’d been consistently beating me for most of my life. I’m talking about an internal opponent: my monkey mind.
In my books, I write that anxiety doesn’t need to stop us from achieving our goals and living the life we want. I wanted to be able to speak that message in front of groups. For two years now I’ve been climbing my public speaking ladder, one rung at a time. Going to Toastmasters meetings, making speeches, exchanging evaluations with others, in a small supportive group was helping me gain confidence and skills. I was winning little skirmishes with the monkey on a regular basis.
Naturally when the opportunity to compete in a regional competition appeared the monkey had a howling fit, Woo-woo-woo! You’re not ready! It had a good point and I was nearly convinced. But since my goal is to expose myself to situations where I can fail, I entered anyway. That made it a win for me.
Two weeks before the big competition, to get some practice, I gave my speech in front of another club. Suddenly, right in the in the middle of it, I stopped, unable to remember what came next. It took me a full 20 seconds for my mind to fill in the blank and move on. The monkey was howling, Woo-woo-woo! You looked foolish in front of all those people! I probably did look foolish, but my goal was to be authentic no matter what, so that was another win for me.
At the regional competition, I was the sixth scheduled speaker, and I had to listen to five great speeches, along with the laughter and applause of the audience, while my monkey chattered in the background, Woo-woo-woo! They’re better than you! My heart was beating so hard and fast I could see my jacket moving over my chest. Woo-woo-woo!, howled the monkey, You’re falling apart! But I’d learned that my sensations were normal for my situation, and I was able to relax— even smile and joke with some of the other speakers as we waited our turns. When I finally walked to the stage the monkey screeched, Wo-woo-woo! What if you forget like the other day?!
Maybe it was because I was willing to look like a fool that I didn’t forget anything. Maybe it was because I was willing to feel anxious that I was able to relax on stage. Maybe it was because I was willing to lose the regional competition that I ended up a winner.
No, I didn’t win the Toastmasters regional speech competition. I didn’t even place. But the competition that mattered most to me was the competition with my monkey mind. And I won!
May 3, 2019 | Control, Easygoing
Illustration by Doug Shannon
As many of you know, my greatest goal in life is to become more easygoing, to honor the values of flexibility, humor and compassion. But there are many forks on my trail toward that goal. Sometimes I don’t see the fork until I’ve taken the wrong path, and I’m lost in the woods. Here’s a great instance of how that happens.
Last night we were having guests over for dinner and I wanted to make coconut ice cream for dessert. It is relatively easy and healthy and tastes great, but when I looked in my cupboard, I was out of coconut milk. My husband Doug cheerfully volunteered to walk over to the market and pick some up. I was wary. Grocery shopping is my domain, and there have been incidents in the past where I have given him a list of things to pick up, and found the list forgotten on the counter, and he either forgot what I wanted or got the wrong thing. It happened with coconut milk in fact; once I asked him to get coconut milk and he brought home coconut water. But I thought, Surely he learned from that mistake. I sent him off to the store and started gathering the other ingredients to prepare. Ten minutes later Doug returned with a small can of condensed coconut milk. “I not sure this is exactly what you wanted,” he said, “but this is all they had.”
I groaned aloud. I knew it wasn’t all they had. Somewhere in my head a voice was screaming, I can’t depend on my husband for anything!! Suddenly I was at a fork, feeling the pull of the wrong path, the one that leads away from easygoing. It felt like my husband’s failure to get what I wanted was pulling me off track. But that was the catalyst, not the cause. The path that was beckoning me was the one blazed by my monkey mind, guided by these two assumptions:
- To have a successful evening with guests, I need to have a nice complete meal, ie. coconut ice cream for dessert.
- If I want things to be done well, I have to do them myself. I am in this alone.
I had a decision to make. I could act on my impulses, follow the monkey until the situation was corrected, in other words, go to the store myself. Or I could accept what was happening and keep moving on my chosen path toward my goal. And that would take a lot more work!
To stay on my chosen path I had to feel the loss of what I wanted, the anxiety about what would be an imperfect meal, and feel my anger at my husband. So I opened my palms and breathed those feelings in. I reminded myself of the mindset I was after:
- The more I let go of my dinner being perfect, the more present and relaxed I will be with my guests.
- While my husband sometimes misses details that feel important to me, I can count on him for things that are
I can’t say that I felt all easy going and at peace, but I am proud of myself for noticing the fork and staying on my path. I don’t know whether I could have done that a few years ago. Every situation where I can see the fork and make a conscious decision is progress! And there will be plenty of forks in the future where I’ll have a chance to practice with these same mindsets and emotions. In fact, I just noticed that we’re out of that special kind of almond milk coffee creamer I like. Should I ask Doug to pick some up?
Mar 1, 2019 | Anxiety, Control
Text me when you plane lands.
Text me to let me know you got home safely.
Where are you?
How are you?
Hey did you get my last text? (sent 2 minutes ago!)
With the proliferation of cell phones, most of us have dramatically increased our checking on loved ones. This innocent micro-behavior is a symptom of a mega-problem. In fact, it’s the most common problem I treat, the root cause of most worry and stress. The problem is intolerance of uncertainty.
Checking behavior is prompted by a perception of threat. It is often an unconscious perception in the sense that we do not always do any risk assessments about our loved ones well-being before reaching for the phone. The impulse to check and see is triggered by our “limbic brain”, what I call the monkey mind, that governs our emotions. When our loved one is out of sight and we can’t be 100% certain they are happy and safe, the monkey sets off alarms in the form of fight-or-flight emotions. Our brain gets hijacked and we start thinking in “what-ifs”. What if my loved one got in an accident? What if he’s sick? What if she doesn’t love me anymore?
Those thoughts and feelings are eased when we pick up the phone and are confirm they are OK, but this reassurance reinforces the perception of threat, in effect “feeding the monkey”. We end up in a pattern of addiction that distracts us from being present in our own lives. If we want less anxiety about our loved ones we must increase our tolerance of uncertainty by putting our checking behaviors on a diet.
If we were going on a food diet, we would start with monitoring what we’re eating. For a checking diet, we begin by monitoring how often we check on loved ones in the course of at least a day or, better, one week. (You can down load this form or you can keep track on your phone.) Once you have an average of how often you check on loved ones every day, cut this number in half as a target for your diet.
When we begin reducing how often you check, we will notice is that your anxiety will increase. The monkey mind doesn’t like us being uncertain and it doesn’t like being ignored. But like all our feelings, anxiety has a beginning, middle and an end. More important, because it breaks our pattern of checking addiction, this short-term pain will bring long term tolerance of uncertainty.
Reduced checking on loved ones will help us to be more relaxed and present. What greater gift can we give the ones we love?
Apr 4, 2018 | Control
I just got off the phone with someone who most of us would envy. She’s beautiful, athletic, artistic and smart. Unfortunately, she is also a perfectionist. She’d tried out for a solo singing role and she didn’t get the part, which for her meant she was a failure, a lazy underachiever. Nothing could be farther from the truth, but her perfectionism, like a silent serpent, was constricting her potential to be all that she can be.
Perfectionism, along with over-responsibility and intolerance of uncertainty, make up the three facets of what I call the monkey mindset. For the perfectionist, everything we do is judged by one primordial criteria, the judgement of others. We must maintain our status in the tribe. Perfectionist thinking sounds something like this:
“If others are better than me at something it means I am not good enough.”
“If I make a mistake, it means I am a failure”
This mindset leads to behaviors such as procrastination—putting off what we are afraid we cannot do well enough—or over-working, which causes burnout. These behaviors not only reduce our chances of reaching our goals but they feed the perfectionistic assumptions of monkey mindset. Judging an experience a “failure” teaches us that we shouldn’t try for things unless we are certain we can do them well, and that we must work at tasks until we are perfect. Any success we achieve with these affirmations is bound to be joyless and temporary at best.
To cultivate a mindset of success that will sustain us despite the inevitable setbacks in store for us, we must not focus on external outcomes —for my friend, in this case, being rewarded a vocal solo. Instead the focus must be on the process— to be fully engaged, take risks, and tap into your creativity—in short, to be inspired. This expansive mindset sounds like this:
“It is more important to do my personal best, than to compare myself to others”
“If I make a mistake, it means I took a risk and I deserve a pat on the back for this, not a kick in the pants.”
This is the mindset that frees the perfectionist from the judgements of others and the shame of failure. Setbacks become opportunities to remind ourselves what success means to us. If our singer gave herself fully to her singing practice, then she was successful. If she opened herself completely to her coaching, then she was successful. If she expressed herself with passion and vulnerability, then she was successful. If she gave her all she was a success. This is the mindset that will sustain us as we work toward our goals. Unlike “perfect”, which depends on the judgment of others, real success is found within each of us, in ever abundant supply.
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